amazing use of the soundtrack in this scene. cao pi finally taking his brother's place after his successful scheme to make cao zhi a 'betrayer' in his father's eyes (im going to look over how a lot of it was sloppily executed for now. i'll put a pin in this for now to see if i still agree later: i think a lot of this show's problems are around the writing of sima yi). he's kneeling, but he's also ascending, this is the moment it started, how he became his father's heir, became king of cao wei. and the way cao cao keeps monstrously saying to first cao pi, then cao zhi, now cao pi again: you are the son that is most similar to me.
when he said it the first time to cao pi, it was only half a compliment. when he said it to cao zhi, he meant it aspirationally. now it's a full compliment from cao cao, but we the audience know better: the reason cao pi is most like his dad of all 25 sons is because of their wild ambition, their refusal to bow to anyone else or to be bound by common morality, their willingness to do harm to further their own aims. it's not a compliment, it's more of an unfortunate fact
such are the men who become kings in such times
